I went to a new spot today by a marsh. I walked five minutes on a remote path. It occurred to me that if I fell and couldn’t get up, I’d be in deep do do. Is it time to buy one of those buttons, my cousin asked?

Besides needing to be in your home, close to some sort of transmitter, I believe for right now, the LIFE ALERT button is found through my lens.

I spent most of the time bemoaning the fact that I didn’t have a long enough lens to photograph the wheat colored tall reeds in the marsh. Then, I went through a zoomin’ phase with the path, the underside of trees–oh, I was a zoomin’ fool.

But, at the end of Day Five of Countdown to 2009, I chose simplicity: a single leaf on the path after putting the camera down on the ground, as if I had fallen and was looking around for help.

No zoomin’, no magnification, no tricks; only a leaf in focus that just yesterday was covered with snow.

I’m having a mini-meltdown myself thinking of this approaching self-imposed deadline but without it I’d be wandering around a path that goes god knows where with no button to push or cell tower to signal my whereabouts.

Tysdaddy, I was looking at it as if I had fallen and couldn’t get up! It’s a bit of a different take on eternity, don’t you think?

Renee, Thanks photo girl! You are right it is a daily effort but it’s the kind of effort where you lose track of time. The effort that is not all outgoing.

Russ, oh, yeah, that bokeh! I usually get it with the other lenses I use but this is the wide angle and it has to be opened up fully and practically sitting on the subject in order to get it! Yes, morning light. Ah.

Nava, You know I was contemplating going down to the edge of the water but the small incline was all shiny from melted snow and honestly, I feared it was all marshy underneath. It was a close call, though. It’s dangerous this daily shooting! This morning it was sheer black ice by the pond. One step and I would have been down for the count. So, what did I do? Zoomin from my car. O, yeah. I blend.

Oh Pat- this is a singular beauty. You don’t need a life alert. You got a leaf alert.

The compliment of blues around that solitary yellow leaf that survived being covered in snow is painterly in it’s content.
Getting right down on the ground with the camera produces a sense of scale and foreshortening that you get no other way.